You were born with a full head of ~1″ long dark brunette hair. As your first months went by, some of this hair, especially on the back and sides, rubbed off, leaving you with long hair on top and a little duck tail on your neck. New medium blond hair started growing in. At 6 months, 2 weeks, you had some 4-5 inch hair on top and <1″ everywhere else, and Mommy decided to even it out. So, enter her first attempt at cutting your hair.You hair was so light and fluffy, and you were so anxious to look up and around at what Mommy was doing, that it did not look much more even.

Finally, Daddy came to rescue you both with the clippers, currently on a 9 setting. This resulted in relatively respectable short blond spikes on top and even hair (except the duck tail) all around. Daddy will cut more in about a month once the areas excessively shortened by Mommy have grown out a bit.

Since Mommy started dating Daddy in 2005, there are a few traditions that our families have started and kept up over the holidays. One of those, that you got to experience today, is the trip to downtown Seattle for Santa pictures and shopping. Every year, Nordstroms hosts a Santa Claus and the Brewer children get their picture taken with him. They line up outside the store in the morning before Santa arrives and keep warm with Starbucks goodies. Grandma Lois orders one print for the collection. (Some day you need to look through the pictures of Daddy, Auntie Antje, and eventually Mommy, from your age through being the oldest “kids” there.) This year, Auntie Antje and Grandpa Don got there early to save us a spot at the front of the line. We picked up Uncle Caleb on the way down. You were perfect: you sat on Santa’s lap, gave his long beard a good tug, and smiled a big open-mouth smile the first try. We were paid and out of there in <5 minutes.

After pictures comes shopping at Westlake Center: getting truffles for Grandma Lois at Godiva, checking out the quirky stuff at Fireworks, squeezing through the packed aisles of the Japanese shop, and generally trying to check off people on Christmas lists. Next, off to Pikes Place Market for tasty food, including hom bows at the Chinese bakery, and more quirky stores. Finally, a trip to Nordstrom’s Rack for a mostly futile attempt to find shoes for the large of foot: Uncle Caleb, Mommy and Daddy. Past years have also included catching a movie at Pacific Place, but this year, we decided that you had probably had enough excitement for one day.

All children have modeling careers…it’s the persistence of the photographers that determine the lengths of those careers. Your modeling duties today included “sitting” for your 6 month portraits. We traveled to Grandma Carol’s workplace at the Seattle Times, showed you off, carefully ate lunch, then walked to the photographer’s. There, you were amazingly cooperative as we changed outfits, gave you objects to play with, and set you on chairs, blankets and piles of evidently yummy fabric–all while repeatedly flashing bright lights in your eyes.

Hopefully Daddy can get samples of said session posted soon.

Every good dinner needs entertainment and you were part of it today. You supervised as Mommy and Daddy helped Grandpa Tom and Grandma Carol set up a spaghetti dinner at church. At the dinner, you were passed from person to person so that they could make faces at you, bounce you up and down (you are really missing your monkey bouncer), and manage baby drool. One of the diners also brought a guitar, which provided fun, energetic music for singing and dancing (baby style and otherwise).

Since your 4 month birthday, your food repertoire has expanded and you seem to love every new solid food we can spoon you. Fruits are your favorite: bananas, apples, pears, plums, peaches and, as of yesterday, prunes. (Mommy and Daddy learned, however, that the power of prunes should be used wisely and in small doses…) For veggies, you have chowed down on avocado, peas, green beans, summer squash, winter squash, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. Rice and oatmeal are your two cereal mix-ins; we’ll try millet later this week.

We had a rough night last night and it was Mommy’s bad. She fed you what she thought were the avocado bits of guacamole. The several times you woke up screaming with very painful digestive issues told her that some onion or garlic must have snuck into your system. She apologized profusely and joined you in several naps.

There are times when you seem to know that charm is called for and you turn it way up. We went to both church services today and you decided you would smile and giggle and “talk” to everybody. You did the same when Auntie Antje came to visit (you had been asleep when she got home from work yesterday to meet you). You laugh like crazy when people make faces at you, hold you up to a mirror, bounce you up and down, toss you in the air, and help you wave your arms in cheer/dance moves.

You spent the afternoon helping Daddy cheer on the Seahawks, then the evening with playing Santa’s elf with Mommy, Auntie Antje and Grandma Lois at the mall searching for presents…and new socks for your rapidly growing feet.

Today was a big day. You, Mommy and Daddy took a long plane flight from Houston to Seattle for your first Christmas. You were supposed to fall asleep about 1/2 hour into the flight…and instead fell asleep 1.5 hours into the flight. This means that you were rather cranky for an hour–getting Mommy and Daddy some sympathetic looks from other passengers–before you conked out for two hours. Not having colds made taking off and landing so much easier this time around.

Our first stop was to see Grandpa Don, Grandma Lois and Auntie Antje, and to pick up our ride for the duration, the oldest of Daddy’s Volvo fleet: the tan 1977 2-door. Grandpa has been storing it for us. It is definitely a different story getting a car seat into the back seat in a 2-door compared to a 4-door.

In the evening, we went with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Carol for your first acting gig. Grandpa’s church in Edmonds does a living nativity every year with live animals and real babies. Mommy played Mary and you were baby Jesus. The first show, you were calm and awake, charming everyone with the fleecy monster pajamas and nook peeking out from beneath your swaddling clothes. The second show…let’s just say it was half hour after your bedtime (Houston time), you were hungry, and had just had enough of the bright lights, noises and cold drippy weather. You made sure everyone in the vicinity knew you were a real baby…loudly. Fortunately, a quick thinking angel brought Mary a not-so-historically-accurate bottle and you eventually fell asleep.

You and Mommy still have colds. Mostly it just means congestion and occasional coughing fits, though you have woken up several times in the early morning not happy, which means that Mommy and Daddy are very tired. Daddy took you to the doctor’s office to be sure it was only a cold. There, we learned that you are now 14 lbs 1.5 ounces, which means all the chowing down you did over the Thanksgiving holiday has paid off. Soon, you’ll reach a new milestone…size 2 diapers.

Some businesses truly deserve kudos for what they do with their social and environmental relationships. Today, we got to see an example. In Ruskin, FL, manatees often congregate near the warm water discharges at the local nuclear/coal power plant, especially if the weather is chilly. Think of it as a sea cow family spa. This power company knew that peole would visit the cove where the manatees hang out and they could have just let people come and go as they pleased (complete with hazards of parking lot runoff, garbage, boats in the cove, people getting too close to the manatees, etc.). Instead, they worked wih the local goverments to set up a manatee viewing and education center complete with boardwalks out over the cove, a solar powered visitor center, and an exhibit on what environmentally-friendly landscaping looks like in Florida.

All in all, you might not remember much from today either than that Grandma Carol got you an adorable manatee T-shirt and you got your first postcard to add to your visiting places collection (we’ll do this in the future and have you write on your postcards what you did/saw/want to remember about places you visit). Daddy and Mommy will remember that they got to see dozens on manatees for the first time including a mom with two calves, a couple very large males, and several playful manatees who liked to surface near the boardwalk and blow nose-fulls of water into the air.

You got to meet your godmother, Aunt Rachel, today. She drove to Ruskin, FL to Aunt Danielle’s to spend the day with us. Aunt Rachel was Mommy’s roommate in high school  and now teaches kindergarten in Palm Coast, FL. You and her spent the later part of the morning playing and talking, then after a lunch of yummy Thanksgiving leftovers, we braved the Black Friday crowds to take you on a walk around the mall. We found you some more adorable outfits including a couple sweatshirts since the weather in Houston has finally gotten a little chilly. You gave them your stamp of approval (i.e. chewed and drooled on them).

Auntie Rachel says she misses you and your giggles already and can’t wait to come visit us in New Mexico.